"Ding! Randomly plundered entries: Spirit Devourer (Blue), Toxic Spirit Aura (Green)."
"Toxic Spirit Aura (Green): Your spiritual energy now contains poisonous attributes."
Adrian barely glanced at the entries before shaking his head with obvious disdain.
"One's a duplicate. The other's garbage. Straight into the bin."
He dismissed them without hesitation, mentally tossing the new abilities aside like crumpled paper. Compared to the wealth of powers already under his control, these were trivial. However, as he took a moment to feel the changes in his body, he did notice a slight improvement-his magical reserves had grown, and so had the strength of his soul. Not dramatically, but enough to be measurable.
"This cursed spirit must've been in the upper-mid tier," Adrian murmured to himself. "For a blue-tier entry, that's a decent gain."
He could feel the potential of the Spirit Devourer trait lingering within him. Among blue entries, it had a ceiling that rivaled some of the purples.
His mind gradually returned to the real world. The chaos of the moment had died down, but the echoes of it still lingered in the panicked stares and trembling hands of bystanders. Adrian swept his gaze over the surrounding crowd-frozen, confused, and terrified. Time to clean up.
He raised a hand, and from his fingers erupted a soft, shimmering light that spread in all directions like a wave of starlight.
"Nightmare Magic: Memory Rewrite."
In the next second, every single witness blinked once in dazed confusion. The fear in their eyes was gone. Their memories of the last few minutes-the curses, the violence, the horror-erased, replaced with the illusion of a momentary lapse in thought. Some looked around as if trying to remember why they were standing there. Others simply resumed their conversations or continued walking, none the wiser.
Adrian sighed.
"Valyria's magic is handy as hell."
The crisis averted, his gaze drifted toward the two girls still standing near him. Eriri was visibly shaken but alert, while Miko looked like she'd just run a marathon through a haunted house.
"You never disappoint, Miko," he said with a wry smile.
As expected, if there was a cursed spirit nearby, Miko Yotsuya would stumble into it. He'd spent hours combing the district for a target, only for Miko's path to serve up an entire cluster of them like cursed confetti.
"You always find the worst of the worst."
The compliment nearly made Miko cry.
"I-I don't want to be good at that!" she whimpered, clearly traumatized.
Adrian ignored her tears and turned his attention to the blonde beside her, whose eyes had locked onto his with incredulous intensity. That face-he knew it instantly.
Golden hair, haughty expression… that familiar, vaguely tsundere air.
"Well, well," Adrian said with a smirk. "Look who it is. Been a while, golden pup."
Eriri's eye twitched.
"That nickname… wait. You're that bastard from back then!"
Miko blinked in confusion. "Wait… you two know each other?"
Adrian chuckled and, without hesitation, began telling the story.
After being taken in by the so-called Hero's Village, he hadn't spent all his time in that backwater. During his childhood, he'd been sent to city schools for proper education. And it was there that he'd met Eriri.
Back then, he'd been something of a "king of the kids"-a magnetic presence with sharp eyes and a silver tongue. Eriri had known him well. Perhaps too well.
Memories flooded her mind.
She remembered her younger self, naïve and flustered, completely caught off guard when Adrian had tricked her-and a few other girls-into giving up their first kisses.
"God… I was such an idiot…" Eriri groaned internally.
How had she fallen for such an obvious play? And worse, how had she not recognized him sooner?
"Why did you suddenly transfer out?" she asked aloud, her voice quieter than expected. "Even Utaha had no idea what happened to you. We looked… I looked everywhere."
She paused, then added, "And how the hell do you have anime superpowers now?"
Her tone was accusatory, but her eyes were filled with confused longing. The suddenness of his disappearance had left a mark she hadn't realized was still there until now.
Adrian gave a casual shrug.
"Long story short? I was born in a Hero's Village. Got kicked out when my demonic bloodline woke up. Spent five years on my own. Now I'm back."
Simple, crude, and brutally honest. That was Adrian's way.
Eriri stood frozen, unable to reply. The world she knew didn't make room for things like "Hero Villages" or "demonic bloodlines." And yet, here he was—real, solid, standing right in front of her, wielding the kind of magic she'd only seen in fiction.
Miko, meanwhile, was simply stunned.
"So, you're a demon?" she asked in a small voice.
"Half-demon. Not that any of the full-blooded demons give a damn. I'm not exactly on anyone's family tree," Adrian replied, brushing off the topic.
He didn't want to linger. The encounter had already delayed his next step, and with his Gate nearly ready, time was running out.
With a flick of his fingers, he conjured two talismans and handed them to Eriri and Miko.
"Keep these on you," he said. "I've got somewhere to be."
And just like that, he vanished.
One blink-and he was gone, leaving behind two girls, a breeze, and a thousand unanswered questions.
"…That bastard," Eriri muttered, clutching the charm. "We finally meet again, and he leaves without letting me say anything."
She stared down at the talisman in her hand. It was intricate, laced with magical energy she couldn't begin to understand. But her lips curled into a soft smile despite herself.
At least… we met again.
Miko, still catching her breath, looked at her own talisman with wide eyes. She'd seen enough cursed objects to tell the difference between junk and the real deal. And this charm practically sang with power.
"…It feels stronger than the one Reina gave me," she whispered.
The girls stood in silence for a while, until Eriri turned to Miko and asked in a hesitant voice:
"That… thing from earlier. That monster. You saw it too, right?"
Miko nodded slowly.
"I see them all the time. I think… I think you're starting to awaken, too."
She proceeded to explain what little she knew-about the cursed spirits, about the ability to see them, and the danger they represented.
Meanwhile, Adrian was already gone, stepping into a narrow, forgotten alley.
He reached into the depths of his mind and summoned the power he'd been cultivating.
"Gate Between Worlds-activate."
Before him, light gathered and swirled, condensing into the shape of an ornate door adorned with shifting sigils. It shimmered with power, fed by the karmic energy he'd been accumulating ever since his arrival.
Information surged into his mind.
The Gate Between Worlds wasn't just a portal-it was a realm. A transitional pocket of space the size of a football field, existing outside of time and reality. A staging ground for interdimensional travel. A private domain.
It would grow larger the more karmic energy he absorbed.
More importantly, anyone with a favorability level of 80 or higher could be bound to the gate. With Adrian's permission, they could enter the realm, travel between worlds, even serve as guardians of his domain.
He browsed the interface, finding the system's favorability levels clearly laid out:
[Favorability Levels]
0–9: Stranger
10–29: Acquaintance
30–59: Friend
60–79: Trusted Companion
80–99: Life-and-Death Bond
100: Eternal Devotion
"So I can bring people with me…" Adrian murmured. "Could be useful."
The girls under contract with him-Raynare, Mio, and the rest-would surely reach tat threshold with a bit more training. And with the binding enforced by their contracts, there was no need to worry about betrayal.
In a worst-case scenario-say, the fall of the world, the return of the Eldritch Ones-he'd now have a way out. A private safe zone. A future stronghold.
That knowledge brought a wave of relief he hadn't realized he needed.
With a firm step, he entered the gate.
The inside of the pocket realm was bleak. A barren plain stretched in every direction, under a sky shrouded in perpetual fog. The light was dim, the air thin. Life could survive here-barely-but there was no vitality. No growth.
Adrian knelt and scooped a handful of dirt. It crumbled in his palm, dry and lifeless.
"Too little karmic energy," he murmured. "It's not stable yet."
He would need more. Much more.
But now, with the Gate Between Worlds in his possession, he had a foothold-something permanent. A sanctuary. A weapon.
And with it… the next phase of his plan could begin.